Activism is Worth the Effort 

Disclaimer: Due to the nature of this article, there is some nudity in the images accompanying it.

This past week, I was pleased to open my mailbox and see my name written across a large envelope arriving from Norway. Inside the wrapper was a copy of Cupido, a Norwegian/Danish publication of erotic art, erotica, and other sexuality related content.

How did this wonderful piece of mail arrive in my hands?

The magazine sitting in my mailbox was the result of nearly a year of my planning and hard work. As a student in the Sexuality Studies Department at San Francisco State, I had decided that I wanted to work on a project that brought my academic work into the public realm. In the spring of 2009 I began working to combine my research on bisexuality and bisexual activism, my personal interest in visual arts, and my desire to see more bisexual community in the Bay Area for my MA project. The result of my efforts was a 3 month long exhibition entitled The Bisexual Art Project. The exhibition, held at the Polk Street Good Vibrations store, addressed the variety of ways people understand and experience their bisexuality through the personal narratives of 15 different artists.

As my first hands-on experience in organizing a community event, The Bisexual Art Project was a challenge. The process of finding a venue and recruiting artists caused more than a few sleepless nights wondering if I would even be able to get the basic elements of an art show together. Once Good Vibrations had agreed to host the show and artists' submissions started arriving in my inbox, I spent the summer determining the pieces to include, working on captions for the artwork, and creating flyers for the show. All of the pre-planning for the show ended in a mad rush to get work mounted in the gallery in the final few days before the show.

But all of that pales in comparison to the benefits of having completed the show. Putting together the project was a wonderful chance to finally put my politics into practice. For anyone out there wondering whether they should take the plunge and put together that activist project they've always wanted to do, here are three reasons to put your ideas in motion:

1) You can create what you want to see: There are quite a few stereotypes about bisexuality that I wanted to be able to address through this project. There are also a lot of different interesting ways that people experience their bisexuality and interpret their desires that I wanted to include. Finally, I wanted to be able to address all these issues through a project that was visually-interesting and dynamic.

The work that artists included in the show exceeded my expectations. It was wonderful to see individual artists recreate visually the fluidity of their desires, or the ways their identities as disabled and bisexual were mutually fortifying, or how they were able to grow within queer communities.

2) Activism can provide new and unexpected opportunities: The magazine I mentioned earlier? It was sent to me by the publisher after my project and some of the art work from it were written up in the magazine's feature issue on bisexuality. And that opportunity arose because I got the chance to present on the art show at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality's Annual Conference in Mexico last November.

Putting yourself out in your community by doing creative and interesting work can get you noticed. If you take a chance on a project, it can turn into other opportunities to work on things you are excited by and that you care about.

3) Activism of any size can have a positive impact: When the show's run ended and the artists involved came to pick up their work, I was able to talk to them a bit about their experience with the project. For many of the artists, this was their first opportunity to show their work in an exhibition. For others, it was a first opportunity to see positive narratives of bisexuality in a public forum. Although I was concerned before the project that it might not have much impact, I realized afterward that the impact that it had on the artists and myself alone was well worth the effort I put in to its completion.

Remember that the goal of your project is to benefit your community. Even if you can only reach a handful of people, the work you're doing is beneficial.

Anyone interested in contacting me about this project can reach me at biartsf@gmail.com

Jack Mohr was the communications intern at the National Sexuality Resource Center. He is also a student in the Sexuality Studies MA program at San Francisco State University. For his graduate project, he organized The Bisexual Art Project, an art show that explored the different ways individuals understand and engage with their bisexuality.